In an email Talbott wrote:Bear in mind that the piece is intended to review the issues in a fairly preliminary way without getting into polemics. The interesting thing, however, is how you can allow certain theologians to speak for themselves and simply shoot themselves in their proverbial foot.

Thank you very much for this article. I hope you do not mind but I have a suggestion while I know that many SEP articles undergo revisions. I wish to suggest that section 2 should be "Gregory Nyssa's Understanding of Hell." Then section 3 should be your "The Augustinian Understanding of Hell" and so on.

Thank you very much for this article. I hope you do not mind but I have a suggestion while I know that many SEP articles undergo revisions. I wish to suggest that section 2 should be "Gregory Nyssa's Understanding of Hell." Then section 3 should be your "The Augustinian Understanding of Hell" and so on.

Blessings,

Jim

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the suggestion. You are right: SEP entries are designed to be updated periodically, especially when new materials on a topic are published. But a major revision could also trigger another review process. So I will probably wait a while before making any such revisions.

Beyond that, the organization of the entry is as follows. We have a set of three inconsistent propositions, and we have accordingly identified three distinct theologies, each of which rejects one of the three propositions. We begin with those who reject proposition (1), namely the Augustinians, and examine some of the consequences of restricting God's love to a chosen few; we then turn to those who reject proposition (2), namely the Arminians, and examine a freewill theodicy of hell; and finally, we take up those who reject proposition (3), namely the universalists, and explain why they find propositions (1) and (2) so compelling. In that way, the discussion of the Augustinian and the Arminian understanding of hell helps to clarify why the universalists, including St. Gregory of Nyssa, reject the idea of an everlasting separation from God. Given such an organization, Gregory of Nyssa would presumably belong somewhere in section 4--or perhaps as a further contrast (along with George MacDonald) to Augustine's vision of divine justice, which is discussed in section 2.2.

I linked your entry on my facebook page and received the following comment from a friend:

It's an interesting read Sonia but as with any systematic theology he makes several assumptions that God's word doesn't make. It's one of the many challenges of applying human logic (if it can truly be called logical by God's standard) to such a mighty God. What it really comes down to is do you trust what He actually says even if you don't understand it or it appears to make no 'human' sense at all? My intellectual side loves to play these games with God's word but the Holy Spirit who lives in me just says "Trust me Dave!" so that's what I'm trying to do. Articles like this can be good so long as they are not meant to divide the body of Christ. We sometimes need our understanding of Him to be shaken to the core so that He has room to reveal Himself to us. Just like Paul, we sometimes need to be blinded and stopped in our tracts for a while so we can hear Jesus!

Do you have any comments to this? For some perspective, this is a pastor at my church where they pretty much teach that your three propositions are all true, and how it works is a "mystery" we can't understand.

Thanks,Sonia

James 3:13 Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom.

Eph 1:10 ...a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Thanks for your query. Unfortunately, I stay away from all social media--it’s just too overwhelming--so I cannot post on your forum. But one thing you might clarify for your pastor as well as for others is that the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is indeed an encyclopedia of PHILOSOPHY, and the purpose of my entry was to review ideas that various Christian philosophers and theologians have put forth on the topic of heaven and hell. It would have been altogether unacceptable in such a context to review the various exegetical and biblical arguments for and against the three systems of theology identified in the entry. The whole point was to review the philosophical and theological arguments, not the biblical arguments.

Now like you, I find increasingly tiresome the supposed contrast between God’s Word and human reason, as if one could interpret a biblical text without employing one’s reason (and imagination) in the process. Is it not just too easy to confuse one’s own theology, based upon one’s own reading of the Bible (or simply on the theology handed down to one), with the Word of God?--and is it not likewise just too easy to contrast one’s own theology, as if it were the very Word of God itself, with human reason? For my own part, I strongly suspect that, more often than not, those who draw such a contrast understand neither God’s Word nor human reason.

But in any case, perhaps the best strategy at this point is simply to ask questions of a kind that might encourage others to familiarize themselves with the way in which Christian universalists interpret the Bible as a whole. Although most Evangelicals have some idea of how the Calvinists put biblical ideas together and some idea of how the Arminians put biblical ideas together, very few, I am persuaded, have even the vaguest idea of how various universalists, such as St. Gregory of Nyssa or George MacDonald, not to mention someone like Robin Parry, put biblical ideas together. How many have even considered, for example, St Paul’s clear teaching in Romans 11 that God’s severity, his judgment of sin, and even his hardening of a heart is itself an expression of mercy (or compassion) to the objects of his severity? So the best suggestion I can make is that you ask your pastor (and others) to respond to the kinds of biblical arguments that Christian universalists have actually set forth rather than to what someone might imagine them setting forth.

Thank you for considering my idea about Gregory of Nyssa and re-clarifying your argument to me. By the way, my favorite and most used take home point from you is "Concerning the Misery of Loved Ones in Hell."

After re-reading your post this morning, I realized that my response written last night did not address your pastor’s concerns as directly as it might have. So on further reflection, I thought I would relate to you three questions that I would love to put to him.

(1) Your pastor states that I make “several assumptions that God's word doesn't make.” Whenever I confront a generality of that kind, I typically ask for a specific example. I would therefore ask: “Could you perhaps identify a specific assumption that I make and that God’s Word, as you understand it, does not make?”

(2) Your pastor also states: “What it really comes down to is do you trust what He [God] actually says even if you don't understand it or it appears to make no 'human' sense at all?” Here I would ask, “What does it mean to trust in something that makes no sense at all?” The putative statement that the number seven is in C-sharp minor makes no sense to me at all. So what would it mean for me to trust that we nonetheless have here a true statement?—or even to trust that God actually said something like this? Does the mere opinion that God has said something suffice to show that he actually did say it?

(3) If your church does indeed teach that all three propositions in my inconsistent triad are true, how does this differ from the teaching that although no humans will be lost forever, at least some will indeed be lost forever? From a human perspective that seems impossible to understand. But should we somehow trust that it is true nonetheless?

Okay, I woke up in a feisty mood and couldn’t resist that. Anyway, these remarks are perhaps more relevant than what I wrote last night.

To be fair to Dave, he used to be overly wrapped up in theology, debating, blasting people who disagree, etc. He has since come to understand that Christianity is essentially about loving God and loving people, so now he's trying to do that and avoid theological controversy -- swinging to the opposite extreme, perhaps.

(3) If your church does indeed teach that all three propositions in my inconsistent triad are true, how does this differ from the teaching that although no humans will be lost forever, at least some will indeed be lost forever? From a human perspective that seems impossible to understand. But should we somehow trust that it is true nonetheless?

Yeah, I know. The thing is, they look at each point individually and say "the Bible teaches that" -- therefore they must believe it, even if they can't make sense of it. In teaching, sometimes it comes out more Arminian sounding, sometimes more Calvinist, depending on the passage and whatever they're trying to emphasize -- security of the believer, assurance, etc.

Thanks again for the comments!Sonia

James 3:13 Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom.

Eph 1:10 ...a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

SLJ wrote:To be fair to Dave, he used to be overly wrapped up in theology, debating, blasting people who disagree, etc. He has since come to understand that Christianity is essentially about loving God and loving people, so now he's trying to do that and avoid theological controversy.

I think that's great, Sonia. I would prefer a pastor to learn that lesson over just about any other. He sounds like a great guy.

JasonPratt wrote:Sounds like the logic stopped him in his "tracts" and he realized he was "blinded" but then decided that must be what God wants.

can I suggest that the almost outright opposition, certainly suspicion, of all things related to ''logic'' is what has gotten the christian church in her current positions !, logic was rejected a long time ago - thing is I've always believed GOD is a GOD of logic

tomtalbott wrote:I think that's great, Sonia. I would prefer a pastor to learn that lesson over just about any other. He sounds like a great guy.

-Tom

I agree, Tom! And it seems to me that without the foundational doctrine of love, none of the other doctrines matter.

He is a great guy. Having come to believe that God is saving each person, I find myself appreciating and valuing all people more and more. I begin to catch glimpses beyond the surface -- seeing the infant child of God in each one and seeing hints of what they will grow into.

Sonia

James 3:13 Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom.

Eph 1:10 ...a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

(1) All humans are equal objects of God's unconditional love in the sense that God, being no respecter of persons, sincerely wills or desires to reconcile each one of them to himself and thus to prepare each one of them for the bliss of union with him.

(2) Almighty God will triumph in the end and successfully reconcile to himself each person whose reconciliation he sincerely wills or desires.

(3) Some humans will never be reconciled to God and will therefore remain separated from him forever.

It seems to me that an Arminian might take issue with the wording of #1, and find this modification more accurate: "All humans are equal objects of God's unconditional love in the sense that God, being no respecter of persons, sincerely wills or desires to reconcile each one of them to himself, if they are so willing, and thus to prepare each of those who are willing for the bliss of union with him."

Thoughts?Sonia

James 3:13 Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom.

Eph 1:10 ...a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

SLJ wrote:It seems to me that an Arminian might take issue with the wording of #1, and find this modification more accurate: "All humans are equal objects of God's unconditional love in the sense that God, being no respecter of persons, sincerely wills or desires to reconcile each one of them to himself, if they are so willing, and thus to prepare each of those who are willing for the bliss of union with him."

Thoughts?

I think you are right, Sonia, that many Arminians might want to amend proposition (1) in the way you suggest. But I also think these Arminians are confused about the best way to express their own position.

Would not God’s will or desire to save all, as expressed in 1 Timothy 2:4 for example, already include the desire that all sinners willingly (or freely) repent, so that God can prepare them for the bliss of union with him? This is not to say that God would causally override someone’s own reasoning processes or interfere with someone’s freedom in relation to him. For the whole point of the Arminian’s freewill theodicy of hell is to offer an explanation for why God’s own desire in the matter of salvation, although certainly sincere, may never be satisfied in some cases. But even if salvation itself requires a free choice of some kind, or a willingness to be saved, it does not follow that God’s will or desire to save all would itself depend upon anyone’s having the relevant willingness to be saved.

The example of Ted Bundy’s mother, discussed in section 5.1 illustrates the point nicely. Her heartfelt desire for her son’s redemption no doubt included the desire that he willingly repent of his monstrous crimes. But in no way was the existence of this desire itself--the desire that her son willingly repent--conditioned upon her son’s actually being willing to repent. Similarly, even if salvation requires a free choice of some kind, God’s desire to save all already is the desire that all should respond willingly. Whether he will successfully satisfy his own desire in this matter is, of course, a further question, and this further question brings us to proposition (2), which the Arminians reject. It seems to me, therefore, that an Arminian should simply accept proposition (1) as it stands and reject proposition (2).

Put it this way: God certainly desires to save each of us, if we are so willing. But he also desires that we be so willing.

Anyway, those are a few of my own preliminary thoughts. Thanks for a thoughtful response.

Hi Tom, I thought of a way to build on your argument that confronts Arminians who reject the possibility of postmortem conversions. Sadly, the following reasoning might not challenge various Calvinists, but we cannot always address everybody in one swoop. Here is my challenge to Arminians:

Any doctrine that says God irrevocably gives up on humans in hell has major problems. For example:1. Could one say that God always loves the damned in hell but irrevocably gives up on the damned in hell?2. Could one say that God temporarily loved humans who never accepted salvation in life but God irrevocably gives up on those humans in hell and stops loving them?3. Could one say that God never loved the lost who never accepted salvation?

Is there some other possible explanation for God irrevocably giving up on people in hell that I did not mention?

All of these positions appear to me to include insurmountable problems.

If we reject that God irrevocably gives up on people in hell, then we are left with two options: (1) everybody eventually accepts God's relentless pursuit and (2) some people continually reject God literally forever.

Option 1 could include reasonable limits on human freedom that appear consistent with the Bible and science. Option 1 could also include a model of radical human free will while we could never predict it until we see it, but then such a model of radical human free will might necessarily include the possibility of backsliding in heaven. Option 2 could happen only with a model of radical human free will.

In any case, rejecting that God irrevocably gives up on humans leaves us with a worse case scenario that is the hope of universalism.

auggybendoggy wrote:Tom,Bob once counseled me to respond to the illogical affirmation as mentioned above like this:

Ok so I believe God will save every single person, not one will be lost.And I believe many will be eternally damned to hell, separated from God with no hope of redemption.

When they respond, well how can they both be true, you say "That's what I'm asking you!!!!"

LOL!!!! At some point you just have to laugh.

If, in fact, the Bible is an incoherent mess of contradictions, the sooner we walk away, the better. I'm suspicious of people who talk about "maintaining tensions". ie. "Ignore cognitive dissonance." Makes me think they're either dull or devious.

"God really wants to save everyone. He really can, but he actually won't." Talk about tension till you're blue in the face. Fact is, this simply makes no sense, and if this is what I'm asked to swallow, I may as well become a Mormon or a Druid.

james.goetz wrote:Is there some other possible explanation for God irrevocably giving up on people in hell that I did not mention?

Well, I thought of an answer to my own question: Could one say that God always loves the damned in hell but lacks the power and wisdom to offer salvation to the damned in hell?

This forces me to my revise challenge to Arminians:

Any doctrine of irrevocable damnation has major problems. For example:P1. Could one say that God always loves the damned in hell but lacks the power and wisdom to offer salvation to the damned in hell?P2. Could one say that God always loves the damned in hell but irrevocably gives up on the damned in hell?P3. Could one say that God temporarily loved humans who never accepted salvation in life but God irrevocably gives up on those humans in hell and stops loving them?P4. Could one say that God never loved the lost who never accepted salvation?

Some might hold to P1 because they are unfamiliar with the imagery of postmortem conversions in 1 Peter and Revelation. In this case, I argue for the biblical doctrine of postmortem conversions.

If anybody then sees that postmortem conversions are biblically plausible, then the doctrine of irrevocable damnation indicates that God irrevocably gives up on the lost according to P2, P3, or P4. But God irrevocably giving up on the lost makes no sense when considering that God is love and never gives up on anybody.

If we reject that God irrevocably gives up on people in hell, then we are left with two options:O1. Everybody eventually accepts God's relentless pursuit.O2. Some people continually reject God literally forever.

O1 could include reasonable limits on human freedom that appear consistent with the Bible and science. O1 could also include a model of radical human free will while we could never predict it until we see it, but then such a model of radical human free will might necessarily include the possibility of backsliding in heaven. O2 could happen only with a model of radical human free will.

In any case, rejecting that God irrevocably gives up on humans leaves us with a worse case scenario that is the hope of universalism.

james.goetz wrote:P4. Could one say that God never loved the lost who never accepted salvation?

My sister argues that many people are pretty-much zombies, "sons of the devil", hated by God, actors made to create challenges etc for the sanctification of real people, the "children of God".

I can see her point. As an author, I have created many characters for whom I have no love, characters I intended from the outset to destroy. What's more, I can command my good characters to love the bad characters, without contradiction. If, by some technological magic, I manage to meet my good characters in the real world, and they lament the loss of their loved (but bad) companions, I can comfort them by saying those bad characters never really existed. It's hard to mourn a figment of someone's imagination.

Creating bad characters (and destroying them forever) doesn't make me a bad person. Nor would doing the same reflect badly on God.

I guarantee you that the bad characters are indeed real people. I know and love too many of them, but I suppose you could argue that at some point perhaps they'll turn out to be elect, and so they can't be counted as non-people. Nah -- not buying it. (Not that I think for a moment that YOU'RE buying it either.)

. . . we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of everyone, especially of those who believe. (1 Timothy 4:10)

james.goetz wrote:P4. Could one say that God never loved the lost who never accepted salvation?

My sister argues that many people are pretty-much zombies, "sons of the devil", hated by God, actors made to create challenges etc for the sanctification of real people, the "children of God".

I can see her point. As an author, I have created many characters for whom I have no love, characters I intended from the outset to destroy. What's more, I can command my good characters to love the bad characters, without contradiction. If, by some technological magic, I manage to meet my good characters in the real world, and they lament the loss of their loved (but bad) companions, I can comfort them by saying those bad characters never really existed. It's hard to mourn a figment of someone's imagination.

Creating bad characters (and destroying them forever) doesn't make me a bad person. Nor would doing the same reflect badly on God.

Just some thoughts.

I know someone who last I heard from her was going this route, too, as a newly converted Calvinist (from Arminianism), although she swore she didn't believe it: the non-elect are only cigarette people (as she called them). Philosophers would call them zombies: soulless machines, biological or otherwise, which only appear by all possible external human tests to be real persons. (Not to be confused with horror undead zombies, who typically couldn't possibly be mistaken for real people. )

Of course in that case, Christian universalism is technically true, not Calvinism! The non-elect don't really exist and there's no reason to punish them, they can just be annihilated like any other particles, or have their particles completely shuffled around for other purposes, no big deal, except insofar as we may have mistakenly loved them ourselves (like loving an irascable teddy bear).

This makes a total hash of everything in the scriptures about impenitent sinners being punished; but then again one could suggest that most of those references are to real people who will be saved from their sins after all (per Christian universalism), with the occasional references to apparent annihilation referring to the zombie non-persons who are filling in the narrative gaps of the story.

As an author I would never have the stomach to suggest such a thing myself about my own characters (in case anyone wonders if I'm going that way with my novels), but I suppose it's technically possible from a metaphysical standpoint. I rather strongly doubt the scriptural testimony adds up that way overall, though.

Well it would be horrifying in regard to the 'real' people in my story who came to love 'fictional' characters even though they were wholly impenitent sinners.

I suppose it wouldn't be horrifying to have fictional pseudo-people who were so evil nobody ever loved them, and so who were never dismayed to find out they weren't real people and so wouldn't be saved from their sins into righteousness. People would only be relieved such monsters were finally removed from play.

Although then their depredations against real people become fully my responsibility, not as systemic accidents which might happen in a neutral system of reality to affect fallen creatures (like asteroids or tornadoes), but as entities behaving 'rationally' because I myself am the rational entity intentionally driving them around.

In order to defend a certain theology, my sister's willing to sacrifice most people's existence...

The problem with all the "brain in a vat" theories is that they're unprovable either way. Given this, the only sensible thing to do is to laugh, and get on with life.

But maybe we can do better...

Suppose I accept (like a skeptical philosopher) that Frank might be a zombie. My love for Frank will be influenced by this uncertainty, and have a certain quality.

Suppose I accept (like a child) that Frank is most certainly real. My love for Frank will be influenced by this certainty, and have a certain quality.

Who can doubt that the quality of the naive child's love would be very much better than the skeptical philosopher's?

Since God wants us to learn to love well, populating the world with zombies (and allowing us to suspect this) would work against this goal, even making it impossible. Therefore, the world is not populated with zombies.

Now, that argument proceeds from having already established on prior grounds that God exists and has certain characteristics such that we can be consequentially sure no human zombies (in the philosophical sense) exist. A Calvinist proceeding from subtly but crucially different characteristics of God might come to another conclusion; so it would be better to connect the conclusion back to the nominally shared agreement of trinitarian theism (or something like that).

On the other hand, arriving at God's existence from a route starting with a version of the Argument from Reason (so far as the question of theism vs. atheism goes -- I'd start the argument much farther back for paring off as many metaphysical proposals as possible before then), requires presuming for the sake of any argument that I am not a philosophical zombie; and any presumption that my audience exists as real people whom I expect to rationally appeal to (instead of only causing them to react automatically with a mental fluorescence or something like that) extends that concept. In other words, to have an argument we must presume that not everyone is a philosophical zombie, but that isn't the same as presuming no one is a philosophical zombie.

Consequently, if I conclude that there are no philosophical zombies, then I am not arguing in a circle, because I didn't presume from the outset that there are no philosophical zombies, only that I must necessarily presume there are at least one or two non-zombies for any argument to be 'an argument' at all.

In other words: Golden Presumption (you and I can act, i.e. you and I are not philozombies) leads to concluding theism and not-atheism; theism plus other factors evidently in the account leads eventually to concluding supernaturalistic trinitarian theism; trinitarian theism leads to concluding no philozombies at all (in this Nature, perhaps also by principle extension none in any actual or possible Nature).

Fortunately, a philosophical zombie wouldn't be capable of being conscious about anything, it would only look conscious to other persons.

From a formal perspective you can't use that to argue you're rationally active (and thus not a zombie) because you'd be tacitly presuming your rationality in order to make the argument (although you can subsequently argue to conclusions about what would be true if you weren't rationally active). From an experiential perspective, though, you can be sure you aren't a philozombie. (Because you're experientially conscious of things.)

I've no doubts about my mind's existence at this precise moment, but many doubts about everything else. Philosophical doubts, not practical. I don't ponder the reality of my chair. I simply sit in it.

If God is good, I can expect there to be a correlation between my inner perception and the outer world. Sanity would be one of God's good gifts. I would perceive a green tree in my mind because there actually exists a green tree in my garden.

However, if God is bad or non-existent, I no longer have a reason to believe my own eyes.

A bad God might deceive me capriciously for his own amusement.

A non-existent God is no better. As Plantinga points out, evolution adapts the body to the environment. It doesn't adapt my inner perceptions to objective reality. It doesn't matter what a frog believes it's doing when it catches a fly, so long as its body automatically does what's needed to survive. In the same way, so long as my (unknowable) body automatically does what's needed to exist in its actual (but unknowable) environment, it doesn't matter what I believe I'm doing. If there is no God, I may in fact be a clever slug with delusions of grandeur.

Ironically, that's kind of the reverse of how Descartes approached the topic, but yep.

(He started with the question of whether there was a proposition immune to the solvency of utter scepticism and fetched up there. I prefer to go about it from the more positive direction, to detect what is most fundamentally needed for any argument to be an argument. You may recall my second Section in SttH being about that. )

Alan wrote:And there's the rub. God wants us to learn to love truly. How can we truly love zombies?

As I noted earlier, it's theoretically possible that God could create philozombies who behaved in such a way that nobody ever loved them and so no one would be heartbroken to discover such creatures were never actually persons.

But aside from the critical problem of God then being sole direct author of evil (since those creatures are behaving rationally with God's direct rationality, the way I would be the one behaving evilly if I created an evil sock puppet to go troll message boards as a technically parallel example thus being unjust to real people with my fictional pseudo-person) {inhale!} -- I agree that that's another problem, too. We may accidentally come to love impersonal objects (like teddy bears or turtles), but God never intended those objects to be mistaken for and treated as persons. (Although a corollary to this position would be that, since no love is ever lost, I suspect God will bring those items to personal life in the world to come!--as I strongly suspect He invests and wakens spiritual souls in animals with a high enough design to accommodate those souls when other people love them, even in this life. Perhaps even blood pythons, CL! That might even be a duty of ours in this life; I'm sure it will be a duty of ours in the resurrection!)

An evil philozombie, however, would on this theory be intended by God to be mistaken for a real person; and that principally undermines the concept that God expects us to love even our worst enemies (at least with saving love if we can manage nothing more under the circumstances and due to our weaknesses!)

Edited to add: ALL HAIL ALEX FOR FIXING THE FORUM ENGINE!! (Editing function also now tested. And smilies. And image posting. Now testing tag alerts, @Alex Smith... Quote function now tested, too.)

Would a zombie have to be created directly by God? One couldn't evolve, nor be concieved by normal parents without God violating freewill or removing natural love or something ... The only way I could see God creating zombie-humans is by direct creation/manufacture ...

I often have to check myself from falling into a teenage, ego-centric solipsism that eradicates the problem of evil by recourse to a matrix-style brain in a vat - but the temptation doesn't last long. Still, it's a more preferable solution than positing either a God who wills evil or atheism (IMHO). But I prefer a good God who doesn't create zombies + universalism.

pog wrote:Would a zombie have to be created directly by God? One couldn't evolve, nor be concieved by normal parents without God violating freewill or removing natural love or something ... The only way I could see God creating zombie-humans is by direct creation/manufacture ...

I'm inclined to say that natural selection of accidental mutations alone (standard biological evolutionary theory) or any development of mere automatic reactions and counterreactions would practically by definition only produce philosophical zombies at best. God doesn't have to remove anything, He has to add something to the normal natural processes.

But He set up the natural processes and under normal circumstances (at least since the beginning of human history) non-zombie humans occur on a regular basis. Regardless of how that comes about (although I infer that some kind of miracle is involved to shift the categories of behavior over), standard operating procedure results in a situation where we're expected, logically and morally (as part of loving our neighbors as ourselves), to regard other human animals as NOT being zombies. (Or as not being Socratic cabbages, to borrow another related idea from the history of philosophy. )

That situation could not have come about without God's intention, one way or another, so it is reasonable to infer that He intentionally expects us to regard human animals (aside from clearly evident special circumstances) as more than philosophical zombies.

Consequently, God would be acting against His own intentions to set up secret philosophical zombies, even if He set up one who behaved in ways that no other human could love (thus preventing us from being brokenhearted about its revelation as only being a technical 'zombie' or 'cabbage'.)

Btw, since we've run rather far afield of the actual discussion, I intend to port these posts over to their own thread in the philosophical category (leaving a link in the original thread). I'm just waiting till the forum seems less hiccupish.